


It Flies Away...

by mergwaine



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Character Study, Fatherly Love, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Internalized hatred, M/M, Magic Opression, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, hardship, life after death, post s5, relationship, yeah i made this just for myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:46:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27534724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mergwaine/pseuds/mergwaine
Summary: Merlin deals with the loss of Lancelot. He finds his path back to his friend. He always does.
Relationships: Balinor & Merlin (Merlin), Lancelot & Merlin (Merlin), Lancelot/Merlin (Merlin)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	It Flies Away...

**Author's Note:**

> hi, this is a merlin character study-ish shot fic but much of it relies on his (romantic) relationship with lancelot, if you don't like that, don't read. 
> 
> leave kudos and comment if you liked it.
> 
> content warnings: death , grief , allusions to opression

**_melancholic (adj.)_** : having or expressing the feeling of being sad, ill-like.

There is not much to be said about loss that is new or important or innovative. There aren’t many descriptive ways of expressing the forlorn, the woeful wreck of a feeling that comes with mourning. But Merlin sure felt like he was expressing his remembrance in a much more intense way than others expressed theirs. 

They say you have nightmares after a loved one dies, it’s not true. Not in his case, at the very least. You feel numb, empty. The little details about life, the ones you appreciated the most, lose their value, their nostalgia. The singing of birds resembles more crows or hawks. Scavengers. Screaming in the sight of a corpse and eating it soon after. The color of the flowers, once with a beautiful sparkle in its luminescence, now seems too much of an irony, as if the world, with its bright colors, was mocking Lancelot’s death. 

You go to a river, the river you once went with him. And you want to drown. And you can’t. But the impulse is there.

There were nights where he just laid in his bed, tired of his grief, and he cried, and he felt nothing, and he felt everything. He’d whisper, asking for the Goddess mercy, for Her pity. He’d whisper to him. To the specter of what he became. To the ghost of his love. 

“Hold me,” and then after the begging echoed, and he noticed, he’d stop, and forced himself to sleep.

Merlin remembers when he felt. When he looked at Lancelot and loved so intensely he could die. Now feelings are just memories from a time long past. A recollection. Reminiscences.

He goes to rooms and he serves the man he promised to serve. He goes and talks to men who consider him as their friend. He even cries alongside the Queen. But it isn’t a noble sentiment, so he puts it away. Alcohol does not help. And he wished he could use magic but, then again, doubtfulness. 

“It’ll pass…” they kept saying. It didn’t. It doesn’t.

**_feigned (adj.)_ ** : to give a false appearance of, inducing; pretending. 

Doubt doesn’t have many places alongside the shame, though, and those of noble blood speak ill of those like him. He pretends to be amused by the jokes about men and women that are similar in nature to his essence. In reality, it just makes him feel like they’re kicking his already fallen body. 

Merlin started to learn to be quiet. To not stand up. As a trained hound, he felt his voice, muffling itself, every time he was going to repent or educate. It was as if he was wounded, with scars on his back, and every time he’d bark, as the hound he was, he’d feel his master there, saying:

“Your voice does not belong,” and then he’d realize: he must accept the hatred against him. Or at least that’s what everyone else was telling him to do.

In an occurrence, he had heard:

“Observing the way you defend them, it wouldn’t surprise me if you were a sorcerer,” and then laughs. Even from those he’d die for. Even from those his existence was destined to. Merlin learned to not speak. To just suffer and ache in silence it was better. It didn’t have any conseq uences doing so, or so he thought. 

This instance made him be more aware of why Morgana was the way she was. Why did she become such a person, with strict, narrow-mind morals? It was for her lack of tolerance towards her intolerants. She wouldn’t take what she took all her life. She wouldn’t bear the thought of being constantly mistreated, more than she already was in Camelot. When Uther was. And he understood her, her anger, her pain, her wish for something to change.

And he almost envied her power. Her strength. But he remembered the things she’d done. And he shut down his thoughts. It was his destiny to serve, to always bow down and have his head looking at his feet. He was obliged by his oppression, and there wasn’t much he could do about it. The ones who knew, the ones who made him rebellious, who made him feel like he had a glimpse of freedom, they were already dead. Balinor. Will. Lancelot. The only ones in his life. His father, best friend, and his lover. 

**_miraculous (adj.)_ ** : highly improbable and extraordinary and bringing very welcome consequences.

Three years had passed when Merlin ventured himself to the landscape. The snow made him shudder, as it melted in his scalp. His scarf tingles his neck. He had lost everything. The coldness made his breath appear deeper in the dense air. 

The wind struck his hair, but he didn’t have much of it by the time. It started falling. “Stress,” Gaius had said, without being consulted. But that was the warlock’s doing. The sorcerer had his hands on his pocket, his pink lips glowing in the daylight, though, the wintry Sun felt shy. Bewilderingly, he walked through the stone path, now lost in the snow, into when he once was with his King.

He did not know what to expect. But he did expect it.

He picked up the tool, which he had put down on the floor, and he blew the horn. For a second, there was only him. It echoed through the surface of the stones. Nemeton looked over him. He then felt an enormous peace. He felt a gaze, a kind gaze. A bird dives from the deep of the sky, his wings stretch the color of the sky, so grey-like. A gentle finger runs through his back. And he recognized the texture of it. The details of skin that just one lover can remember. He had not unearthed this fondness for a while. The object of his affection.

He felt another presence too, it was distant. As a phantom. But, it indeed was one.

**_fatherly (adj.)_ ** : of, relating to, or befitting a  _ father _ .

In the path to the light, we’re all black.

His shadow opened a door, the brightness overcasting it. His hands, strong, rough, callused stretching the fit of reality. His golden eyes. Much like Merlin’s. Another shadow passed, but this one was familiar. More familiar than the other, which brought a reminder of sadness to Merlin’s mind.

_ We don’t have time.  _ He communicated, his raw thought only. 

And there were so many things Merlin wished he could ask, so many questions left unsaid. But they didn't have time. And he knew why he was doing this. The fruitless landscape was gone. Now he felt neither heat nor cold. A body of a man alive, but not really. The brightness was blinding, but Merlin forced his eyes. And his irides took the burning pain, sun-bitten. 

He could feel a headache. But then again.

Once, not long ago. He mouthed life back to a bird. Its wings spread. The bones were fixed. Life was there. Merlin had been given the power over death and life many years ago, in the fight against the sorceress who was no more. At the time, he didn’t wonder what happened to the animal after he flew away. Did he survive? Was he normal? Or was he a changed, pained version of itself?

The place is coldly white. Lifeless. Colorless. The skin of Lancelot appears more bright than ever. He smiles. Lungs. Air. In and out. He runs. And he hugs his friend. Who once were more. His touch is infuriating, almost not real. A ghost hug, it feels there, but it isn’t. Translucent physical embrace.

“Merlin. Merlin” he tastes the name, as if he is experimenting with it. 

“My Sir Lancelot…” Merlin breathes out. He kisses the man on the cheek, he holds it. His beard, that had no time to grow out. His hair. The black strips of hair. And his skin. The texture, color. He kisses his mouth. And it feels like dense air. But it does not matter the pleasure of it, he creates a pleasure nonetheless. For he is kissing the man he loves. The man he loved.

“I’ve seen it. The things you’ve been through. The war. I am sorry. I know you never liked to kill. I know you never liked to lost” speaks Lancelot.

“They are nothing. Nothing compares itself to you, my love. No loss. No Saxon slaughter. And I did grief for each one of those men. But my grief is all…”

“Don’t.” 

“I won’t.”

“How are you…?”

“Your father. A rift. A mistake in creation’s part. He’s giving away his time.”

“Time of what?”

“Do not concern yourself with him or me. Focus on you.”

“Do I have anything at all? Anything left, worth living for.”

“Guinevere.”

“She is strong.”

“Is she. Are you?”

Silence.

“I will bring you back.”

“Don’t. I’m happy here. Everyone’s here. People you loved. Who loves you back. I met Will,” he laughed. “I know the stories about how you ran through fields of everlasting green, how the petals of roses matched the red of your lips. And of the blood of your scratches. How I wish we had known each other, then. He is lucky. Elyan is here, too.”

_ Will. _ Merlin thought, and giggled. Tears in his eyes, pain on his chest. “Where?”

“Everywhere. Nowhere at all. I know nothing. I feel  _ everything _ . I can’t explain it to you. It’s like our mornings. Where you used to wake up in my chest, feeling my breath go up and down, pretending to be asleep. How I listened to sparrows singing, the trees. The golden light of the sun spilling itself over the length of your body. How I loved. You’ll see. When it’s your time. But it won’t be.”

“I want it to be.”

“You don’t. You’re mourning, that’s all. You’ll see beauty in life. In the now of life. Stop remembering, Merlin, history is gone. Now you’re all that it’s left of me in this world. Words of mine only you heard. Poetry coming only from our midnight conversations. See.”

_ I saw the phantom of you. We carry the burden of the lives who could’ve been  _ — _ our lives  _ — _ , more than only the lives of the fallen and dead. _

_ It’s closing, _ Balinor informed.

“You promised me. The day we…” 

“I know,” Lancelot calmed him down, with the jointing of their lips. A ghost lip. And one who was not. 

“I made you promise you would never…” 

“It’s restful here.”

The white started to darken itself, time was almost up.

_ Merlin, we don’t have much time.  _ Balinor talked to him, and time stopped, the upcoming blackness stopped, Lance frozen.  _ I am proud of you. I am happy to see the man you’ve become. I love you, my son. I visit every other night, the mother of yours. I see her sleep. Her locks of hair. The eyes you inherited. We don’t have much time. But I wish we… You were doomed to be a child of mine _ —

_ No, I wasn’t.  _ Merlin replied. He was crying. _ I told mom. About you. It was painful. _

_ I saw. _

_ I miss you. She does too. She prays for you, for you to be well. I told her I’m not sure about this method but… _

_ I do listen to it. It’s what makes this much more bearable. The Goddess allows us to hear. To see. But never to touch. _

_ Is this her light? _

_ It is. Merlin, I warn you, do not look back to the light, when you’re leaving. _

_ Because I can free both of your spirits? _

_ No. Because it’s the condition She imposed. I am here. He is too. No one man should see both loved ones. Especially one who isn’t from your blood. Who has no connection to you since birth. A loved one you came to love. He shouldn’t be here. But I struck a deal. You must not look back. And then, next year, we’ll see each other again. _

Merlin gulped. Time started to go. Flowing as it had never stopped.

The dark consumed. It wasn’t a bad thing. Just a thing. As some things just are, while others aren’t. Time stops, it comes back, it reverses itself, it does all sorts of things. And it is natural, not uncommon.

“We don’t have much longer,” Lancelot says. 

Merlin is quiet. His breath, in and out. “I,” he says. “Lancelot, you know I—“

“You don’t have to tell me,” Lancelot says.

He goes, his vision blurs itself. And he is going towards life, but he wants just one last glimpse. Just one. And he knows his love is looking. But he can’t. He shouldn't. He feels the warmth his arms emanate. And he knows. As he paces towards reality. He can feel his body, cold, freezing. He steps in the snow and—

**_grateful (adj.)_ ** : showing or expressing thanks to someone, someones. 

The snow melted itself in his feet. Warm water. A beacon of light irradiated to the sky. From the light he had just walked out of. The clouds, befitting his heart, turned blue. A state of mind. The landscape formed itself, it rewrote itself. The sky had no clouds. It was just blue. He could feel the salt scent of the sea, the birds sang, warmly. The worms and insects on the ground. He could feel as the earth was one with his. From the thin air — but, then again, not — a butterfly appeared. A blue wing, a red one. It was a strange little creature. It stopped at the point of his index finger, kissing it, almost. A tear rushed down his recently warmed cheek, his eyes burning. He knelt. He felt. The roses in the mountains.

It was afternoon. The winter and frozen air of the other regions that he could eye with his ability. The sun passed through it. A beautiful reflection in the sea. The sunset. The rest of the star. The excessive orange. The feeling of peace.

A sunburn grass. Excoriating. Illuminating. 

He thanks Her.

It flies away. And, just for now, he’s left alone, kneeling, in a chain of mountains filled with flowers and life. And he completes it in his head.

_ Lancelot, you know I love you. _


End file.
